Update on the "Cross in the dirt" story: basically, it's all an urban legend

[WilliamPitt]

...at least according to TPM:

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/08/solzhenitsyn_biographer_crossi.php

(snip)

There's been a ton of buzz on the web for the last day or so -- beginning with this Daily Kos diary -- suggesting that John McCain patterned his story about a Vietamese captor drawing a cross in the dirt before him on a similar episode from Russian novelist Alexander Solzhenitsyn's time in the Soviet gulags.

But it turns out that this episode probably never happened to Solzhenitsyn at all, and according to a Solzhenitsyn biographer it appears nowhere in his published writing. Columbia University professor Michael Scammell, the author of Solzhenitsyn: A Biography, says the episode "never happened," and didn't appear in Solzhenitsyn's book, Gulag Archipelago, either.

This only solves a piece of the mystery, but it's a key piece. It doesn't necessarily rule out the possibility that McCain or his biographer, Mark Salter, picked up the tale that this happened to Solzhenitsyn elsewhere and embellished it for their own purposes.

But it takes one well-trafficked theory off the table: That McCain, a fan of Solzhenitsyn, picked it up straight from his works. More broadly, it also skewers once and for all the cherished right-wing falsehood that this happened to Solzhenitsyn at all.

Of course, it's still possible that McCain or Salter picked this up from the sort of right-wing circles that it first originated in. After all, this tale was bandied about by Chuck Colson and many other wingnuts for years; McCain or Salter could have picked it up from such circles, as the notes from Colson's 1983 book, Loving God, explain:...

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. I think the "starting line-up of the such and such football team"

is from some movie as well.

But then again, this is the guy who freed the slaves by defeating Togo on San Juan Hill with his own two hands, so we probably shouldn't question him.

[WilliamPitt]

6. You forgot the part about how he throttled Hitler in the bunker,

flew all the Berlin airlift planes personally (without crashing a single one!), ended the Vietnam war, defeated communism, and found a way to make non-dairy creamer that actually does taste like real milk.

Oh, and he defeated the Soviets in Afghanistan, but only after scoring the winning goal in the 1980 winter Olympics.

Do you believe in miracles?

:P

[berni_mccoy]

2. So Why Did McCain Reference This Story In His First Response To Cross-Gate?

[samdogmom]

3. So we're supposed to excuse McCain because this is an "URBAN LEGEND"?

Sorry! No excusing from me! McCain's got to explain this "fish tale" in complete detail before I'll accept an apology.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

5. McCain was walking along the beach next to his NVA prison camp.

And he turns to look behind him, and he sees one set of footprints, and at other times two sets of footprints.

So he turns to Jesus and asks, "why did you leave me."

And Jesus says, "those were the times I was carrying you."

True story. Swear to God.

[samdogmom]

17. LOL!

[Bucky]

12. As posted below: "Any debate about what happened to McCain in the Hanoi Hilton is a debate he wins"

It's not a productive argument. Elections are not truth commissions, they're marketing campaigns. Play the game smart.

[elocs]

4. It seems as though much of McCain's POW experiences are urban legend

and probably too many Americans swallow it as the gospel truth.

[billyoc]

7. Like pop rocks and soda exploding in your stomach!

:rofl:

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

8. That's how they killed his wingmate- Goose.

Left a wife and two kids.

:cry:

[pokerfan]

9. He claims it's something he'll never forget

yet he never mentioned it for thirty years.

How odd.

[Bucky]

10. Great comment by one reader there: "Any debate on what happened to McCain in the Hanoi Hilton..."

"I think everyone should let this one go. Any debate about what happened to John McCain in the Hanoi Hilton is a debate John McCain will win."

Of course that won't stop the occasional stray DUer demonstrating his contempt for anyone he disagrees with, regardless of the facts.

[arbusto_baboso]

11. Did McCain lie? Yes. Will it matter to evangelicals? No.

Evangelical christianity is all about telling yourself lies in order to make yourself feel better, usually by denying what an inwardly corrupt and diseased soul you have, and/or by demonizing those who are "other". If McCain plagiarized this story from Solzhenytsin, picked it up from a movie or made it up from whole cloth doesn't matter; in the end, evangelicals will believe this tripe because they WANT to believe it, and no amount of fact will change their minds on it.

[Bucky]

14. You're missing the point.

It won't matter to patriotic swing voters. It won't matter to people who love their country and respect those who protect it and are too damn busy struggling to survive in the Bush economy to spend time sussing out the nuances of who's telling the truth on a minor point in McCain's biography. They'll just see prisoner, torture, endurance, and grit... and then vote for the guy we've talked about the most.

Change the subject to an argument we'll win.

[arbusto_baboso]

18. I'm not missing the point at all. We both think this is a fruitless line of campaign rhetoric.

I just have different reasons for thinking so.

[blogslut]

13. The more I learn about this tale, the more urban-legendy it sounds

I don't suppose anyone's read the original novel, "Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ"? I hear tell that this cross bit was in the 1959 film. Perhaps it also appeared in that 1880 novel?

[Bucky]

16. New Urban Legend: John McCain wrote Ben-Hur.

And Blogslut is really Harriet Miers.

[blogslut]

19. How Dare You!!!!11!!!!!One!

I would never be caught dead with that shitty eyeliner and mall bangs. You take that back!

[JerseygirlCT]

15. So I think it's fair to wonder whether his vaunted patriotism is also

an urban legend...

[Berry Cool]

20. Please tell me the story about how when McCain was in prison, he wasn't allowed to have a Bible

just a deck of cards...that he used to worship every Sunday regardless... :rofl:

(Adding: The "soldier worships using only a deck of cards" story is an urban legend too.)

[Spazito]

21. I think the question is still valid regardless of where the "cross in the sand" story originated...

The question continues to be is whether McCain appropriated as his own as opposed to it actually having happened.